and on the fourth try, you live.
When
I was 15, I choked on a grilled chicken sandwich from Wendy’s while my mom
drove me and my new boyfriend home from a movie. To this day, I can’t watch a
toddler eat without thinking it’s going to kill them. I think this says a lot
about what is wrong with me.
After
the choking incident, my mom panicked almost every time we had dinner. Things
would be going along just fine, salad course finished, onto the soup, and we’d
hear this deep, guttural throat clearing coming from tiny, delicate her. Then
she’d do it again. And again, springing from her chair in the kitchen to the
living room where she could hack her brains out in privacy. There was never
really anything stuck in her throat. But when you see your daughter almost die
because of a mishandled bite, it stays with you.
So
does the fact that it is entirely possible to give yourself the Heimlich
maneuver without the back of a chair to hurl yourself onto. You just need the
very real fear that death is near, and a hell of as self-inflicted sucker punch
to the gut. If you are good at this, whatever is lodged will go flying from
that place in your throat you never want to be clogged to the deep, dark
crevices of your mom’s purse on the floor of the car. And then you will take a
deep breath, collect yourself and collect the piece of chicken - turning it
over, inspecting it. Bonding with the very thing that almost killed you. Taking
it inside when you get home to show your dad. Telling him about how it was sort
of stuck and you thought the smart thing would be to drink the iced tea in the
consul to help it find its way from throat to stomach. Only immediately, you
realized how stupid that was when this breathing-hole-shaped piece of chicken
covered in honey mustard sauce just lodges, locking itself into place. You’ll
tell him how you began to panic. How, unable to breathe, you forgot the
universal sign for choking and instead resorted to flailing you arms. Your mom,
who had been talking to your new boyfriend, realized what was happening and
started screaming, “she’s choking, she’s choking.” He’ll hear about how she pulled
the car over and you unlocked the door to get out. You had, at that point, not
been breathing for maybe 20 seconds. It felt like 20 minutes. But standing on
the side of the road didn’t work, so you got back into the car and worked very
hard to expel the sandwich. It took four tries. But on the fourth, your mom’s
panic subsided and you could breathe again.
5 Comments:
At 7:10 AM, Branson said…
I know it wasn't your intention, but this actually made me hungry for a grilled chicken sandwich.
At 7:58 PM, Anonymous said…
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At 3:24 AM, Марк said…
Ту просто будешь в шоке от них! piter-indi.com в хорошем смысле)
At 9:20 PM, Nicole S said…
Thank yyou for sharing this
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